Towel Bonanza



Around Christmas, Not 2 Square Weavers seem to be finishing up on towel warps.  Why - because they make such good gifts.  One size fits all and the amazing variety of choices is just so much fun to weave. 

At our December meeting, we held true to our usual offerings.  The green and purple towel below was woven by Eileen.  It is a two block broken twill design.  The warp and weft are 10/2 mercerized cotton and the towel is very light weight - although the sett was 32 epi.  Eileen thought it too "whimpy" but most of us thought it was great for drying glassware or other delicate items.  Gorgeous colors.  We will have to break out the McMorran Yarn Balance to test the yd/lb of her yarns from Lunatic Fringe and compare them to other 10/2 mercerized cottons we have.

Marcy had finished another warp on this two block twill threading.  She has found the joys of tying on to an old warp and weaving another colorway.  This time the towel warp was a burnt orange and gray.  Look at what happened when she used a white weft and then a navy weft.  The glory of neutrals and the geometric design just sings in both of these towels.  This pattern has been featured here before and is from Strickler's book on 8 shaft weaving.  The draft is #228 if you happen to own the book.  

 Marcy had also been busy on the loom weaving overshot runners. There was some warp left over and she did this striped beauty, and changed around the overshot motifs.  Great idea and a good use for the end of that warp.

 

 Mardi told a story as she showed us her towels woven on her old Leclerc loom.  She said she had always had problems with getting even tension across the whole warp.  When she went to the Vavstuga school a few months ago, she asked the instructors there to give her advice. Their answer was to use a temple.  Mardi warped up the loom, and woven this stunning stripe and plaid set.  The temple helped tremendously and her selvedges are perfect.  What a great feeling to have conquered this common weaving problem.

Marjorie brought in some woven items from several years ago, including this gorgeous hemstitched towel.  Love the color and the detail on this one.  The towel also has some huck patterning.

 

 Sue V. went to the Weaver's School on Whidbey Island this past spring.  Sue hasn't been weaving recently, and wanted to get her weaving mojo back so she took the beginning class.  The first photo is of the sample she wove in class with the huck lace design and a frame of stripes and plaid.

So Sue took inspiration from her woven sample and designed a towel warp specifically for a husband who doesn't always make sure his hands are perfectly clean when he uses the towel.  The towels are a beautiful red clay color - just like the soil here in Nevada County.  Sue used the same framing stripes, a huck design and made the towels just a bit longer than usual so that they hang around the handle of her refrigerator.  Stunning towels - and one would never know if a bit of red clay smudge got on them or not!

There's more to show from this meeting, so stay tuned for part two of our December meeting show and tell



The Weavers School

Diana and Ingrid were fortunate enough to be able to attend Madelyn van der Hoogt's Weaving School on Whidbey Island, WA last October.  It was an excellent experience for both of them.  It was five days of weaving on the many looms the school has already warped and ready to go and lectures.  They both came away with samples.  All of the samples were woven on eight shafts (except one) in mostly 10/2 cotton.

They wove some of the same samples.  The first is Atwater Swedish Snowflake Twill.  This is an advancing twill.

Swedish Snowflake - Diana



Swedish Snowflake - Ingrid

Diana liked this design so well, she wove several towels and a seat cushion in this design. 



Diana's Seat Cushion

Diana's Towel version

 

 

 












Two different samples included overshot in the design.  Diana wove a sample that was a blended draft of overshot and lace.  Ingrid wove an overshot gamp that was also a color and weave example.

Blended Overshot and Lace



Overshot Gamp

There was a doubleweave color window sample that Diana wove.

Doubleweave Color Windows

Both weavers wove a sample of collapse fabric.  Diana, a Circle and Star design and Ingrid, a Deflected doubleweave, mosaic pattern.

Circles and Stars - Flat and Collapse

Deflected Doubleweave - Mosaic Pattern

Another design using wool and cotton was the Blocks in Rosepath Order.

Blocks in Rosepath Order

Blocks in Rosepath Order

Diana got to weave a sample of Beiderwand.  This is a form of lampas.


Beiderwand



Beiderwand Detail



There were several lace designs.  This one was huck, playing with colors.

 

Sherbet Runners in Huck Lace

Ingrid was able to weave this bright sample in Summer & Winter.



Summer and Winter

The school has several draw looms.  One is set up to weave a sunflower pattern.  Another, a shaft drawloom, to weave a Figured Double Weave sample. This is an abbreviated version of the intended sample.  

Figured Double Weave

One final sample was woven on a Louet Megado computer dobby loom.  It was a Network Draft design.

Network Draft

It was an extremely fun and interesting experience.

Catching up

I've got some special pictures in my meeting folders that need sharing. So this post is a little gallery of recent projects from the Not 2 Square weavers

Here is Betsy's shadow weave shawl; she made two and traded a loom for one of them!  The directions are in Handwoven, Issue 158.  I believe that Betsy used bamboo for her shawls and added a border that wasn't in the original directions.  The one she brought to the meeting was gorgeous.

And - another striking scarf from Betsy's loom.  This has a couple of shots of novelty knitting yarn every so often.  What a good idea!

Here is a pairing of tick-tack-tow placemats and napkins from Diana's loom.  The placemats are double weave pick up from Jean Scorgie's  Weaver's Craft #21.  Diana and I were totally baffled by the instructions for the pick up, but finally e-mailed Jean to get an explanation.  Once explained , Diana finished weaving the four mats and then designed a huck lace pick up design for the napkins. 

Ingrid is working her way through the twelve months of a colorful calender, using the colors for each month for a series of towels.  These are April towels and sitting next to them is a pine needle basket that Gus is working on.  She is just zooming along with baskets these days and they are looking really nice.

To end up our gallery showing we have an homage - or could it be un hommage?  Dee bought one of Ingrid's towels (the middle piece) and was so taken with the color combination that she wove a scarf (on the far right) and a shawl (on the left) using the same color combination.  Dee refers to her inspiration as an homage to Ingrid's original piece.  Dee was correct in thinking that color combination was worth repeating, don't you think?

Cornucopia of Weaving Ideas



Diana presented this lovely diamond patterned scarf at the May meeting.  I'm going out on a limb here, but I think she said that it was a silk warp.  At any rate, she used 8/2 variegated yarn, and 3/2 purples, greens and blues in the warp and used a lavender weft.  It isn't obvious in the photo, but this pattern gave an embossed appearance to the textile which is very eye catching.  Should you want to weave your own, Diana found the draft in A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, page 115, pattern 420.  It's called an 8 block, point repeat twill.



Gus was inspired by the lace workshop she recently took from Suzie Liles.  She put on a 6 yard warp and used a pleasing neutral 3/2 perle cotton for these place mats.  These mats were designed by Suzie  Lyles.  Gus sett her project at 12 epi.

Here is an idea from Dee.  In her stash she had some sari silk waste yarn.  It is sometimes hard to use in a weaving project because it can make the fabric very heavy and almost impossible to use in the warp because of the fuzzy nature of the yarn.  Dee's solution is inspired and can also be used when you have a fancy yarn and only want it to show on one surface of the cloth.   Here is the recipe. Take a four shaft loom and thread in  a straight draw ( 1-2-3-4).  Weave two shots of tabby with yarn similar in weight to the warp yarns.  Then raise shaft 2 and throw a shot of sari silk, two more shots of tabby with your finer yarn and finish up the sequence by raising shaft 4 and another shot of sari silk.  All of your fancy yarn (in this case sari silk)  lies on the surface of the cloth.  Dee sett her piece at 12 epi and plans to use the fabric for a handbag.

I'll save more ideas for another post.  We have two weavers doing bead leno and another contemplating a double width lap robe to talk about.  Plus there are lots more pictures in my Not 2 Square photo folder that need to be shared with the weaving world.

Linen and Lace Details

It is somewhat hard to photograph lace weaves, especially in situ and in florescent light. But here are a few examples of what we're weaving.

8-shaft huck diamonds

Bead Leno

Handm Manipulated Laces

Alphabet Bronson Lace

4 Shaft Bronson Lace

Basket weave with tabby border

Huck, More Towels and an Ecology Shawl

Sue Habegger is using up special yarns that she has collected over the years.  She had a cone of natural brown Guatamalan cotton and Sue decided that weaving a solid color and a stucture were both out of her comfort zone.  This is the gorgeous yardage that was the result of her efforts.  The picture shows the yardage sideways. Sue wove bands of plain weave separated with bands of huck lace.  The huck takes up a bit more than the plain weave, so there is a gentle ripple which turns out to be very attractive.  Sue is still thinking of what kind of a garment to make with it.

At the meeting, Betsy had just come back from a fancy three day wedding in the Bay Area.  She had given the bride and groom their choice of colors and she presented them with handwoven towels as a gift.  She used warp colors in the weft and the towel above was woven with a white weft.  The draft is from Marguerite Davison's book, pg. 75 - John Murphy's No. 10.  I'm not sure which treadling she used with this towel - maybe X?  I thought it was a lovely thing to give a color choice to the gift recipients. What a good way to make the gift personal for the couple.

We all were so captivated by Carol's Ecology shawls that she brought in one that she wove using all handspun yarns.  She says the only problem is that the shawls aren't perfect triangles.  As you near the end of the warp, it gets tight and is very hard to weave - therefore one side is longer than the other.  We all agreed that it didn't make a lot of difference with this shawl, which is a real treasure.